Men Fair Isle Jacket in Bergere de France Alaska - 72007-10 - Downloadable PDF

Men's Fair Isle Jacket in Bergere de France Alaska – Pattern 72007-10

This intermediate-level knitting pattern produces a classic men's Fair Isle jacket, designed with bold colorwork panels and a structured silhouette. Published by Bergere de France and worked in their Alaska chunky-weight yarn, this pattern delivers a warm, textured outerwear piece suitable for confident knitters ready to tackle stranded colorwork techniques. The pattern is available as a downloadable PDF and covers five sizes: S, M, L, XL, and XXL.

What Is Being Made

The finished project is a men's Fair Isle jacket — a full outerwear garment featuring traditional stranded colorwork motifs worked across the body. The jacket is constructed using multiple yarn colors to create the signature Fair Isle patterning, and it is finished with four brown buttons (28 mm diameter), giving it a polished, classic look. The garment is knitted flat in separate pieces and assembled, as is typical for structured jacket construction.

Yarn and Materials

The pattern calls exclusively for Bergere de France Alaska, a chunky-weight yarn, used in four distinct colorways:

• Perdrix (A) – shade 20522: the main color, requiring 17 to 22 balls depending on size
• Automne (B) – shade 43035: a contrast color, requiring 2 to 3 balls
• Gouffre (C) – shade 23257: a contrast color, requiring 2 balls across all sizes
• Lézard (D) – shade 54570: a contrast color, requiring 2 balls across all sizes

Additional materials include stitch markers (ref. 68395, pack of 48) and four brown buttons, 28 mm in diameter (ref. 30133, sold in packs of 6).

Needles Required

The pattern uses four needle sizes at different stages of construction, which is characteristic of garments that require ribbing, body shaping, and colorwork sections to be worked at different tensions:

• 5.0 mm needles – typically used for ribbed edgings and cuffs
• 5.5 mm needles – used for stockinette stitch body sections
• 6.0 mm needles – used for the Fair Isle colorwork chart sections
• 7.0 mm needles – used at specific construction stages as directed

Switching needle sizes throughout the pattern helps maintain an even fabric tension across the plain and patterned sections, a common and important technique when combining stockinette with stranded colorwork.

Techniques and Construction

This pattern is rated intermediate, meaning it is best suited to knitters who are comfortable with basic shaping and are ready to develop their colorwork skills. Key techniques used throughout the pattern include:

• Fair Isle / stranded colorwork: The signature technique of this jacket, worked from a dedicated chart. Knitters carry two or more yarn colors across each row, creating the traditional geometric or repeating motif patterns associated with Fair Isle knitting. The pattern specifies 12 rows of Fair Isle worked from the chart for each size.
• Stockinette stitch (St st): The primary background stitch used for the body of the jacket, worked in the main color Perdrix (A). Stockinette creates a smooth, flat fabric that serves as the ideal backdrop for colorwork panels.
• Slip stitch edging (Slip 1): Defined in the abbreviations as slipping one stitch as if to purl with yarn on the wrong side of the work. This technique creates a neat, chain-like selvedge edge, which is particularly useful along front bands and seamed edges.
• Patt 2 decrease: A specific decrease technique described in the pattern as purling two stitches together without dropping them from the left-hand needle, then purling into the first stitch again before releasing both. This creates a decorative or structural decrease used at key shaping points.
• Needle-size progression: The deliberate changing of needle sizes at defined row intervals — for example, changing from